WASHINGTON, D.C. (NAFB) – The future of demand-destroying ethanol waivers is now in the hands of the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Supreme Court after a lower court vacated three last-minute Trump EPA waivers to Sinclair Oil.

The Sinclair waivers will now be judged in light of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that EPA may only extend pre-existing refinery exemptions based on refiner hardship in buying ethanol credits. But ultimately, the EPA will be guided by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the standard that could be handed down as early as next month.

Renewable Fuels Association chief Geoff Cooper says more than 60 Renewable Fuels waivers left over from the last administration are still pending at the Biden EPA. And the damage to ethanol and corn demand has been huge.

Cooper puts losses to the waivers and the pandemic at some 12 billion dollars. And then, there’s corn.

While a more conservative calculation puts corn losses at just over one billion bushels. Either way, that’s several billion dollars of lost corn demand at price lows during waiver years 2016 to 2018.